


Shoe

by livestolearn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bored Sam Winchester, Dean is humoring Sam, Gen, Humor, Silly, kinda crack like
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-27 12:12:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15024365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/livestolearn/pseuds/livestolearn
Summary: Sam is very, very bored and so his brain starts working over time. Dean get's drawn in.





	Shoe

**Author's Note:**

> I am trying to break a year long writers block with some humor. Basically, this is a concept I have discussed myself with people in my car while on long-haul drives. These are the things I have come up with and I put it into the supernatural verse. Hope you enjoy :-) I know I had fun writing it!

Sam Winchester was bored.

They had been on the road for more than thirty hours. Driving at top speed non-stop to get to a new case across the country. The sad part; they were only about half way there.  30 hours ago, they’d wrapped up a case on Chokoloskee Island in Florida. A Witch had been summoning a sea serpent to eat tourists for amusement. After dispatching the bitch, they returned to their hotel to nurse bruises and bite marks from the serpent. They managed a total of about seven hours of sleep when they received a call from a distressed hunter in over his head. Apparently, the entire town of Port Angeles in Washington State was possessed by demons. They were up and out of the motel in less than twenty minutes. Vowing to get there as soon as possible.

Unfortunately for Sam, Chokoloskee and Port Angeles are literally as far from each other as physically possible on the continental US (if you ignored Alaska, which he usually did). At this point Sam suspected a conspiracy. He also suspected that maybe “Crazy Dave” had been hitting the drugs a little too hard again and was just paranoid about happy Washington housewives seeming to be evil but Dean didn’t want to take that chance. If it was drug induced psychosis, they had to stop him from hurting anyone. If it was a demon town they had to handle it. So here they were… Driving; for what felt like a decade.

The wheels hummed along the road, trees slid past, and there went another of those random shoes laying on the side of the road. That was six in the last 30 hours, that he’d noticed. Poor Sam was cramped up from being folded into a small space for so long and he was bored. So very, very bored. And like with any highly intelligent human; when he got bored his brain started to think. As everyone knows boredom and thinking has the tendency to make people kinda silly.

“Hey Dean.”

“Yeah Sammy?”

“Have you ever noticed…”

Dean interrupted with a noisy huff, “Oh, here we go again.”

“What?”

“You and your “have you ever noticed…” crap. What crazy ass thing is about to come out of your mouth today?”

“The random shoe thing.”

“What random shoe thing?”

“Have you ever noticed that there are a bunch of random abandoned shoes on the side of the road?”

“I can’t say that I have Sammy. Cause, I have something called a life and a job that makes me pay attention to important things.”

“I know you’ve noticed it. I was wondering how they get there. What lead that shoe to be left right there?”

“Jesus Sammy, Get a hobby. Read a book or take up macramé. Anything honestly. Just stop thinking before you hurt yourself!”

“Macramé? Seriously? Do you even know what that is?”

“No, do I look like a girl?”

“When why even bring it up? No wait, never mind, don’t answer that. Anyway, the shoes.”

“I have never noticed any damn shoes.”

“We’ve passed six since we started driving. None have looked the same.”

“Seriously?” Before Sam could reply Dean cranked the music. Sam subsided and continued to think. He slumped a little further into his seat.

Dean kept glancing at him, a worried wrinkle in his forehead. About an hour later Dean reached over and turned the music down just as Sam said, “Another one. That one was black, the last two where white. I think this one was a dress shoe.”

“The random shoe thing.” Dean muttered thoughtfully.

You see when bored highly intelligent people start to think and then express their random thoughts, it becomes somewhat contagious. Now Dean was thinking too. “Maybe someone’s brother took their shoes off in the car and the other brother tossed it out because he was going to die from the smell.” Dean tentatively suggested.

Sam started, then looked at his brother incredulously. It appeared his brother was going to play along for once. “That’s actually pretty reasonable. I figured it was something like they had to stop to pee and a shoe fell out without being noticed.”

“Could be. But you’d think there would be more in that case. The shoe could have been in the box of a truck and blown out.” Dean suggested. It was a reasonable hypothesis.

“Maybe, maybe.” Sam conceded. Then his eyes lit up with another idea “Could be they got a flat and when they were pulling the spare tire they had to take everything out of the trunk and didn’t notice that they forgot to put one back.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think there are more shoes that that around.”

“Fair enough, what about they just bought new shoes and tossed the old ones out.”

“That sounds plausible.”

Sam realized the flaw in that argument seconds later. “Actually, no it doesn’t cause there’s hardly ever a second shoe.”

“Right. Maybe some kid thought it’d be funny to toss his brothers shoe out the window when no one was looking. You know a prank.”

“Now, I’m wondering how many times you did that to me.”

Dean laughed. “Never, we didn’t have the money to replace something as necessary as a shoe but some rich kid wouldn’t be worried about that.”

“True, I like your blown out of the back theory. Could be they were carrying a boat trailer and a kid forgot to grab one of their shoes out of the boat and it bounced out during the drive.”

“Maybe it’s our kinda thing and we should investigate.”

Sam chuckled. “What like some child Witch hiding people shoes?”

“Brain damaged demon who thinks he’s torturing people by leaving them only one shoe…. All lefties?” Dean shot back, rapid fire.

“Oh my god that’s hilarious Dean.”

Dean preened “I know I’m awesome that way.”

Inspiration struck Sam again “Someone didn’t leave enough milk for the elves in the shoe shop so they are being punished by having to seek out the mates hidden in some huge scavenger hunt.” Sam switched tracks again and gave a more mundane suggestion. “Maybe stray dogs have been stealing the shoes as they travel across country and leaving the shoe behind when they find a new shoe to chew?”

“Good one. Uhhhh,” Dean wracked his brain for the next idea. Sam was so smart he was hard to keep up with in games like this. “Roadside bombs? Left there for the unsuspecting passerby to pick it up?”

“Most complex serial killer plot in history.” Sam’s amused glance at Dean set him off and he started to giggle. “The shoes are the lure. He sits and waits till some curious idiot stops to look and picks it up but the shoe is laced with sedatives to knock them out for the abduction and murder.”

“Maybe each shoe is from a murder victim and the serial killer is signing his work.” Dean offered.

“Maybe the shoes are left behind after the abduction itself and now that’s all that’s left of the crime scene, only no one knows it because they just ignore it.”

“That got dark fast.” Dean shuddered. “People man, so much scarier than monsters. What if it’s a new Wendigo hunting method, only not too bright because they’d starve to death before could find any victims.”

“Maybe it’s a Tulpa? Hoping enough people wonder about the reason the shoe is there and then it’ll become a real live thing once the story solidifies in everyone’s mind? Poor thing will likely become a boy with stinky feet and an annoying older brother.”

Once the laughter died down silence filled the car as both men attempted to come up with another scenario. As they pulled into a little town both started laughing so hard tears started rolling down their eyes. This town had a couple dozen pairs of shoes strung up over a phone line on the way into the downtown core. “Bored kids?” Dean asked?

“Viral humor of bored travelers.” Sam offered. “I’m tempted to add a pair myself.” After a few more seconds of contemplation he added. “Hey Dean, Could I borrow a pair of your shoes for a minute.”

“You keep your filthy paws off my shoes.”

After a brief stop to fuel car and body, Sam jumped behind the wheel. They drove on. Eventually Dean stirred from his slump against the window and chuckled.

“What?” Sam inquired.

“I’m just imagining the maintenance guy in Black Rock who is crawling through the sewers under the town and finds your shoe. Do you think they are like: Why do we always find a single shoe under a storm drain like this, I wonder how it got here?”

“What?”

“Rabbits foot? Black Rock? Bella?”

“Oh, right, my unluckiest case ever. I really liked those shoes.”  

“I really wish I’d have been recording when you whined ‘I lost my shoe.’ I’d totally use it as a notification tone on my phone.”

“Ha, Ha, very funny. Back to more serious topics. I bet it was hitch-hikers. Scrambling to get into a truck or something and leave one behind.”

“Or maybe accidents? The clean up crew missed the shoe.”

“Ever notice how a lot of things rhyme with shoe?” Sam asked. Dean shook his head, amused. They lapsed into silence again for another few miles. “Maybe it has nothing to do with the people.” Sam suggested. “Maybe it’s the shoe itself that’s part of it.”

“I was just thinking, maybe they are some sort of passive surveillance? There are cameras inside the shoe so the government can track the cars on the highway.”

“Or they have radar guns in ‘em, alerting cops in a speed trap up ahead?”

Dean chuckled when Sam unconsciously slowed the car a bit. “Back to Witches, because I hate witches and this is something bitchy that they would totally do; they are a cursed object, anyone that picks it up catches something nasty like foot fungus.”

“Probably don’t need a curse for that, just picking up a single random shoe would give you a fungus I’m sure. I was expecting you say the curse would turn into a girl or somethings crazy like that. Anyway, what about government conspiracy to create a shoe shortage to drive up prices so they make more money shoe taxes when we are forced to replace the missing ones.”

“How very Orwellian.”

“Really?”

“What? I read!”

“Sure, you do.” Sam needled at Dean who protested by slapping the back of his head. “Gabriel.” Sam said rubbing the sore spot on his skull.

“What about him?”

“Maybe it’s him following us and he’s not really dead. Maybe we’re the only one’s that see these shoes.”

“That’s some creepy shit Sam and totally his style. I bet its Shoe code. Like Morse code but different.”

“So, like all clear is a white women’s shoe, blue and yellow striped men’s shoe means proceed with caution, and all hope lost turn back now is a black and red baby shoe?” Sam shot back.

Dean laughed at that one. “We’ll be sure to use that if we lose the next apocalypse.” Dean thought hard for a second. “Back to Loki, maybe he just spread them around for laughs to make people ask questions and he never picked them up when he was done. I bet if his dad was around he’d be like ‘Damn it Gabriel, I told you to pick up your toys.”

That derailed the conversation for a long time. Once they composed themselves and moaned about aching stomachs, Sam offered another suggestion… “Maybe the shoes are out looking for their soul mates? They didn’t like the partner humans picked for them and they are expanding their horizons.”

“Dude, that was so dad joke I might have to start calling you gramps.”

Sam shrugged, unrepentant.

“What if it’s an invading army of invisible people from like North Korea or something?” Dean suggested. “Only they can’t be completely invisible or they’d lose each other so the shoe remains visible on all the squad leaders so they can stay in formation. Once the army is spread around evenly enough they will unveil themselves and attack us.”

The next shoe they passed on the side of the road, both men glared at suspiciously. Only this one was on it’s side. “That dude is taking a nap then.” Sam joked.

“Or he tripped? If we drove by in an hour it’d be back upright.”

“Maybe.” Sam conceded with a giggle. “I bet shoes are actually aliens and they disguised themselves as shoes to learn as much about us as possible. The one’s on the side of the road jumped ship intentionally so they could go back to the mother ship to report their findings.” Now they both glared at their own shoes.

Dean stuck his foot up on the dash and said to his shoe “We come in peace.”

Sam had to fight to keep the car under control he was laughing so hard. “Dude I think we need a break. We’re both going crazy.”

“Only…” Dean did a quick calculation through his giggles, “10 more hours to go then we can stop to research.”

“Right. Why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll wake you up if the army attacks ok.”

“Sure.” Dean settled in for a moment before sitting back up and slipping off his shoes. He tossed them into an empty grocery bag, securely tying the handles together. Sam watched all this with barely suppressed mirth. “What?” Dean said defensively. “I don’t want these wily little fuckers getting into mischief while I’m sleeping.”

Just as Dean was dozing off Sam quietly said “Thanks Dean.”

“For what?” He mumbled.

“Humoring me. It was fun.”

“No prob Sammy. It’s what ‘m here for.” Then he was asleep. Sam drove on with a smile and a warm feeling in his belly. No longer bored out of his skull, enjoying the rest of the drive.

Of course, that couldn’t be the end of it. Sam bided his time.  When Dean was deeply asleep he quietly pulled over the shoulder. As silently as possible Sam opened the bag, pulled one of the shoes out and exchanged it with one of Deans boots from the trunk. Then he retied the bag, got back behind the wheel and waited.

They pulled into a motel hours later. Sam struggled to keep a straight face as Dean struggled to open the grocery bag. His cursing made all Sam’s efforts worth while. “Sammy, where the fuck’s my other shoe?”

Sam simply shrugged and booked it to the motel room.

“Retaliation is gonna be swift Moose, you’d better watch out.”

The End 

 


End file.
